This time we start a new series of Case Studies in our Audiodraft Blog. We called Mathias Lampenius, Project Director at Lahtinen Mantere Saatchi & Saatchi, to talk about their recent TV ad “Oolannin Grilliperunat”.

Talking with Mathias Lampenius, the project director of the bustling Helsinki-based advertising agency Lahtinen Mantere Saatchi & Saatchi, you get exactly the kind of a sunny, resourceful vibe you’d expect from a director in the fast-paced creative marketing industry. Explaining how he first came up with the original brief, Lampenius stressed the necessity of appropriate music and soundscapes from the beginning of a project. When drafting the idea for the ad, his team was looking for a particular emotion and atmosphere. Whenever they start to work on a new concept and visuals reference songs are usually used to portray certain atmospheres.

This was the first time Lampenius’ team used Audiodraft Agency Studio. The team was very familiar with the ordinary difficulties of using traditional audio resources on a tight budget, so according to Lampenius they were up for trying out a new service – of which they had heard positive things and had seen good references already. Lampenius also mentioned that their team has more knowledge on audio than marketing companies usually do. So though they do the sound design in house, due to tight schedule and limited resources Audiodraft seemed like a handy middleman in this specific case.

When asked about writing the brief and choosing references to Agency Studio platform, Lampenius told us the platform was very simple to use. It was “intuitive and easy”. They had the reference track chosen and the brief was set. He added that with the 48-hour turnaround time and the 100% satisfaction guarantee it was a no-brainer to test the service. Already the first submissions were very good, which showed the power of the platform. Three of the compositions were chosen for another round after Lampenius’ team gave comments and the composers tweaked the tracks a bit more. One of the songs ended up being a clear winner. “Music side of the production went very smoothly and easily. The whole process felt effortless – it was easy to make decisions and further briefing.”

The marketing agency has to have a vision about the direction where the music should be developed. In this case this was very easy because of the in house knowledge of Lampenius’ team, while the Audiodraft co-producers were working on the side. Lampenius agreed that co-production is an important component to have in a service like Audiodraft as very often the agencies might lack a strong vision on the audio.

When comparing the original feel and the end product, the whole project came together very nicely according to Lampenius. The original idea was to discover carefree, easy-going summer feel with a bit more modern indie feeling including banjo, guitars, hand claps and so on. Also, it had to be fully instrumental (no vocals). In the final song, the feeling which the team wanted to create comes across eloquently.

Finally, when asked about the music and sound design in general as a part of the marketing industry, Lampenius made a strong point: audio is a very important element which creates not just atmosphere but also recognisability. It has an important role thinking about the visual and moving image. You can do radical changes in the emotion and take the storyline forward with music. Also, with music you can affect that brand image and memory you are creating. For all of this Audiodraft is creating great tools and really changing the way music and sound design are ordered and used in advertising.